DURBAN MEET 'Midwives can be safe motherhood guides'

Nurul Islam Hasib
bdnews24.com senior correspondent from Durban

Durban, June 20 (bdnews24.com) ? Nearly a thousand lives can be saved everyday in developing countries, including Bangladesh, if proper midwifery services can be ensured, a new report says.

The first-ever 'State of the World's Midwifery 2011' report released on Monday in South Africa's Durban said around 1,000 women die from pregnancy and childbirth each day in 58 developing countries.

The death could be avoided if midwifery services can be ensured, it said.

The report said, "Proficient, motivated and supported midwifery workforce is a key to success in tackling this heavy toll of death."

It suggested the governments to recognise midwifery as 'a distinct profession' and promote it as a career with posts at the national level policy.

The report, launched at the International Confederation of Midwives' 29th triennial congress, unveiled that there is a wide gap between the numbers of the practising midwives and those needed to save lives.

"The report points to an urgent need to train more health workers with midwifery skills and ensure equitable access to their life-saving services in communities to improve the health of women and children," said Bunmi Makinwa, UNFPA's regional director for Africa in his speech while unveiling the report.

UNFPA coordinated preparation of the report.

The report said unless an additional 112,000 midwives are trained, deployed and retained in supportive environments, 38 of 58 countries surveyed, might not meet their target to achieve 95 percent coverage of births by skilled attendants by 2015, as required by Millennium Development Goals.

The report, however, represented old statistics of Bangladesh's MDG indicators.

It said maternal mortality ratio is 340 per 100,000 in Bangladesh which means the county is far off the MDG 5.

But results of the nationwide Maternal Mortality Survey 2011 suggest that maternal deaths fell to 194 per 100,000 in 2010 from 322 per in 2001, putting Bangladesh on track to achieve the goal.

MDG 5 requires the country to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015.

"We used data from similar sources for all countries. We used joint statistics (2008) of World Health Organisation, World Bank, UNFPA and Unicef," UNFPA maternal health adviser Vincent Fauveau told bdnews24.com.

He, however, said they lately came to know Bangladesh's progress.

Dr Khaled Shamsul Islam, who is attending the congress as the Bangladeshi representative, told bdnews24.com that he had talked with the UNFPA coordinator soon after the report release.

"Basically they collected all information in 2010, but our survey findings (Maternal Mortality Survey 2011) came out in February 2011," he said.

He said Bangladesh has started preparing strategies to scale-up midwifery services despite its successes in cutting maternal deaths.

"We've already made some policy decisions that include creating separate midwifery workforce, converting Bangladesh Nursing Council into Bangladesh Nursing and Midwifery Council and Department of Nursing Services into Department of Nursing and Midwifery Services."

He said the government is committed to produce 3,000 midwives by 2015.

Chief of UNFPA's Sexual and Reproductive Health Branch Dr Laura Laski commended Bangladesh's 'big' policy decision on midwifery.

"Its (midwifery) one aspect is to reduce maternal deaths, but another significant aspect is improving women's health," she told bdnews24.com.

"In Bangladesh the number of adolescent girls is increasing and they are entering into reproductive age and becoming sexually active.

"You (Bangladesh) need to provide them with a package of services that include maternal health services, contraceptives and information on adolescence.

"They don't know when to get pregnant and even what to do when pregnant," she said.

She added that midwives posted at community levels could help in this regard.

ICM president Bridget Lynch said it is the first-ever comprehensive report that clearly identified the need of a competent and active midwifery workforce, working as a key part of an effective healthcare system.

bdnews24.com/nih/ssr/2230h

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